


Something I Hope Lasts Forever

by UnderwhelmingAlchemist



Series: Bucky Barnes is Bad at Valentine's Day [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpine the Cat, Bucky Lives in Stark Tower, Civil War? What's that?, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Short, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, and then made out, au where they didn't try to kill each other, convenient plot contrivances, i just needed a conflict okay, or maybe they did and just made up, tootsie roll slander, up to you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29423670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnderwhelmingAlchemist/pseuds/UnderwhelmingAlchemist
Summary: Bucky Barnes attempts to navigate his first Valentine's Day with Tony Stark - But there's a chance he might not remember. One of three Bucky-centric slash fics written for Valentine's Day 2021.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Bucky Barnes is Bad at Valentine's Day [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2161443
Comments: 7
Kudos: 44





	Something I Hope Lasts Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! I hope it all goes well for you, even if you're just spending the day on AO3 trying to live vicariously through fictional characters in relationships. This is one of three fics written in as many days, so it's a little short, but I hope you enjoy it!

There was a 92% chance Tony would forget Valentine’s Day entirely. 

It wasn’t an important holiday, and it wasn’t like he did his own shopping, so he wasn’t constantly bombarded with isles and endcaps full of hearts and teddy bears and chocolates. Half the time Tony didn’t know what month it was, let alone what day it was. He was pretty sure that he only managed to function as a human being because of JARVIS’s constant reminders that he had a meeting in an hour, or that their date night was that night, or that he actually needed to eat something that wasn’t coffee or a smoothie that most likely contained copious amounts of motor oil thanks to the bot that made it. 

Maybe it was better if he forgot. Bucky had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to celebrate Valentine’s Day in this century, much less with a 48-year-old man. All the twenty-first century media he’d seen had been marketed towards young, straight couples, showing 20 or 30-something men buying flowers and jewelry and teddy bears for their girlfriends. 

Bucky was either 35 or 106, but he felt much more like the latter trying to figure out the whole ‘Valentine’s Day’ thing. He was incredibly out of touch. He tried asking Steve. That was a bad idea. Steve had absolutely no idea either. So he tried Natasha, who said something along the lines of ‘who cares if he’s a 48-year-old man, get him flowers, he’ll eat it up’. 

So that’s what he decided to do. The night before Valentine’s Day he went to a 24-hour grocery store, picked up a nice bouquet of flowers. Then he went back to the tower and set them on his kitchen table. He sat there for a while evaluating them and wondering if maybe he should just pretend he forgot. Tony wouldn’t be upset. Tony might even forget himself. And if Tony forgot and Bucky remembered, a week from now he’d probably end up with a giant stuffed bear on his floor and about ten other things that had been placed there in an attempt to make up for it. It would be a lot easier to just ignore the holiday altogether. 

But then what if Tony remembered? Or what if he realized Bucky forgot and took it to heart? Besides, Bucky wanted to make Tony feel special for once. Under all that ego lay a million tiny insecurities that even around Bucky he felt the need to compensate for. He just wanted to give him at least one moment where he realized how appreciated he was. How loved. Because he deserved a moment like that along with hundreds more. 

So he decided to keep the flowers. He left them on the table, then decided he might as well try get some sleep.

The sleeping went about as well as could be suggested. He spent about two hours staring at the ceiling with Alpine asleep on his chest before dozing off, then scared her off by suddenly waking about half an hour later. The rest of the night went similarly. Lying awake, dozing off, waking suddenly in a panic. All in all, a pretty standard night for him.

He finally decided he may as well stay awake after he woke up for the hundredth at about nine AM. Hey, he’d given sleep a fair shot. It was later than he normally decided to get up. He showered, pulled on jeans and a dark red Henley Tony had made a few comments on (mainly about how it looked good on him, but it would probably look even better on the floor), and headed to the kitchen. 

“JARVIS, is Tony still in his workshop?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he sleep at all last night?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Wish I could say I was surprised.” Bucky stopped when he reached the kitchen table to find Alpine lying there, comfortably sprawled out over the top of the bouquet. “Shit. Alpine, no.” He picked her up and put her on the ground, ignoring her indignant meows of protest, but the damage had been done. The flowers were crushed. 

His heart sunk. Shit. 

Well, it was still early. He could probably get more, right?

Apparently not. The stores he visited either had the pitiful, half-wilted bouquets left or had none at all. By the time he’d made the rounds at all the local grocery and drug stores, it was eleven in the morning. He finally decided to try actual florists, but by then, they’d been hit hard too. They didn’t have anything particularly romantic.

In the end, all he ended up with was a heart-shaped box of drug store chocolates: one of the last they’d had. He’d been desperate enough to consider buying one of the few remaining teddy bears, but he doubted Tony would appreciate that. 

At about one he found himself in the elevator to Tony’s workshop, holding the crushed flowers and the box of chocolates. When the door opened, he walked out, finding Tony at one of his workbenches. He seemed to be tinkering with a part of one of his suits, and it took JARVIS announcing his entry to get his attention. 

Tony looked up, his face lighting up when he saw Bucky. Then he noticed the crushed flowers and the chocolates. He started to say something but Bucky cut him off. 

“Look, I know they aren’t exactly pretty. I got them last night, and I left them on the table, and Alpine apparently decided to make them into a bed. The chocolates probably aren’t very good either, they were pretty cheap, but they were the only ones they had, and-”

Bucky found his words being muffled as Tony walked quickly up to him, cupped his cheek in his hand, and leaned up to kiss him. It was fast and intense, yet sweet. It was clear Tony wanted him to shut up for a minute, so he did, melting into the kiss.

After a moment, Tony broke away, looking up at Bucky with a little grin. “Barnes. They’re fine. I love them. And chocolate’s chocolate, how bad can it be?”

“I mean, have you ever had a tootsie roll?”

Tony considered his point for a moment. “Those don’t count as chocolate,” he decided, taking the flowers and chocolates from Bucky and setting them aside. He draped his arms around his neck, grinning crookedly up at him. God Bucky loved that grin. He leaned up to kiss him again, soft and slow.

After a minute, he broke away suddenly. “Shit, hang on, I made something…” He looked over at the workbench, then started digging through the piles of tools and pieces of his suit until he found a neatly wrapped box about the size of a large man’s fist. He handed it over to Bucky. “Open it.”

He did, carefully tearing away the tape and unfolding the paper. Inside was a wooden box. He opened it to find a beautifully crafted metal rose. The stem was carved with writing that was so tiny that Bucky had to really focus to read it. 

‘To Bucky-’ it read, ‘-Something I hope lasts forever. Tony Stark’. 

“Look, I know it’s kind of cheesy, and it’s not the most original gift, but-”

It was Bucky’s turn to cut him off. He set aside the rose, cupped Tony’s face in both hands, and kissed him sweetly. It lasted a long while, and he only pulled away when he calculated that Tony would start to need air. When he did, he didn’t go far, leaning his forehead against Tony’s. “It’s perfect.” 

“You sure? I was going to add something else, but there was only so much space on the rose stem, and I didn’t want to make it too long-”

“I’m positive.” Bucky pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I love you. And I love it. You could’ve given me anything and I would’ve loved it. Honestly, I was kind of expecting you to forget.”

“I did,” Tony admitted with a little chuckle. “I made that like a month ago when I remembered, then forgot about it completely until you showed up with flowers and chocolate.” 

“Glad I didn’t chicken out, then. I almost didn’t give them to you.”

“Well I’m glad you did.”

As Tony leaned up into another kiss, Bucky smiled. Maybe he _could _handle Valentine’s Day in the twenty-first century.__

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr! I post about Marvel a lot, along with things I find useful. [@underwhelmingalchemist](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/underwhelmingalchemist)


End file.
